MISSIONARY 
FURLOUGH 


BOARD OF 
MISSIONARY PREPARATION 


25 MADISON AVENUE 
NEW YORK 





THE BOARD OF 
MISSIONARY PREPARATION 


The Board of Missionary Preparation for North America 
was created in 1911 by the Foreign Missions Conference of 
North America to make a thorough study of the many 
problems involved in adequate preparation for foreign mis- 
sionary service in all fields. Its membership represents 
Boards of Foreign Missions, general as well as candidate 
secretaries, professors in theological seminaries and in 
special schools and departments for missionary training, 
and others whose study of the missionary enterprise or of 
educational methods especially qualifies them to advise. 

The annual reports of the Board are printed in the annual 
volume issued by the Foreign Missions Conference. It 
issues many pamphlets, carefully revised at intervals, on the 
various phases of missionary preparation. These pamphlets 
are widely used by Boards for the information of their 
foreign missionary candidates. It is believed that they meet 
adequately the needs of such candidates for suggestions 
which may help them to make the wisest use of their oppor- 
tunities during their college and professional study. Other 
series render the same sort of helpful guidance to the young 
missionary on the field during the first term of service and 
in anticipation of the first furlough. 

The Board holds from time to time conferences at which 
those who are responsible as administrators or as educators 
for the promotion of proper policies in missionary prepara- 
tion are brought together with missionaries of experience 
and with specialists to unite in their formulation. The 
reports of these conferences are published by the Board. 

The Board also. employs a Director who gives his entire 
time to correlating and extending its activities. Candidate 
secretaries of Foreign Mission Boards, teachers in schools 
which train missionary candidates, and others interested in 
special problems of missionary training are invited to cor- 
respond with him at the office of the Board of Missionary 
Preparation, 25 Madison Avenue, New York City. 


THE 
MISSIONARY FURLOUGH 


THE REPORT OF A COMMITTEE APPOINTED BY 
THE BOARD OF MISSIONARY PREPARATION 


REVEREND STanLEY Wuits, D.D., Chairman 
REVEREND WI1tuiAM I. CHAMBERLAIN, Ph.D. 
Proressor Daniev J. Fuemine, Ph.D. 
Reverenp Artuur R. Gray, D.D. 
ReveREND Corne.ius H. Parron, D.D. 

S. Earut Taytor, LL.D. 

PresIpDENT WILBERT W. Wuirte, Ph.D. 


BOARD OF MISSIONARY PREPARATION 


25 Mapison AVENUE, New York City 


BOARD OF MISSIONARY PREPARATION 


Rev. W. B. Anderson, D.D. 

Rev. James L. Barton, D.D. 

Prof. Harlan P. Beach, D.D. 
Dean O. E. Brown, D.D. 

Prof. Ernest DeWitt Burton, D.D. 
Miss Helen B. Calder 

Dean Edward W. Capen, Ph.D. 
Prof. W. O. Carver, D.D. 


Rev. William I. Chamberlain, Ph.D. 


Rev. George Drach, D.D. 
Rev. James Endicott, D.D. 
Prof. Daniel J. Fleming, Ph.D. 
Rey. Arthur R. Gray, D.D. 
Miss Margaret E. Hodge 

Pres. Henry C. King, D.D. 
Prof. Kenneth 8. Latourette 
Rev. James H. Lewis 

Prof. Walter L. Lingle, D.D. 
Rev. R. P. Mackay, D.D. 


Pres. W. Douglas Mackenzie, D.D. 
Prof. Paul Monroe, Ph.D. 

John R. Mott, LL.D. 

Rev. Frank Mason North, D.D. 
Prin. T. R. O’Meara, D.D. 

Pres. C. T. Paul, Ph.D. 

Rev. Joseph C. Robbins, D.D. 
Prof. Henry B. Robins, Ph.D. 
T. H. P. Sailer, Ph.D. 

Miss Una M. Saunders 

Prof. E. D. Soper, D.D. 

Robert E. Speer, D.D. 

Mrs. Hume R. Steele 

Pres. J. Ross Stevenson, D.D. 
Fennell P. Turner 

J. G. Vaughan, M.D. 

Prof. Addie Grace Wardle, Ph.D. 
Robert P. Wilder 

Rev. Stanley White, D.D. 


Pres. Wilbert W. White, Ph.D. 


Pres. W. Douauas Mackenzigz, D.D., Chairman 
Rev. Wiutu1am I. CHAMBERLAIN, Ph.D., Vice-Chairman 
FENNELL P. Turner, Secretary 


Rev. Frank K. Sanpvers, Ph.D., Director 
25 Madison Avenue, New York 


PREFACE 


Some years ago a committee, appointed by the Board of 
Missionary Preparation, of which President Charles R. 
Watson, D.D., then the Secretary of the Board of Foreign 
Missions of the United Presbyterian Church of North 
America, was the chairman, after consultation with a very 
wide range of missionaries, prepared a small pamphlet 
entitled ‘‘How Should a Missionary Spend His Furlough?”’ 
which was published by the Board of Missionary Preparation. 
This proved to be very useful and went through a series of 
editions. 

The growing interest of missionaries and executives in 
determining the most helpful use of the furlough and the 
evident willingness of all concerned, both on the field and 
at home, to deal with it in a truly scientific fashion, led to the 
holding of a conference on the Most Profitable Use of the 
Missionary Furlough, in December, 1919. This conference, 
which was attended by a representative group, took as 
the basis of its discussion a report (made by a committee 
appointed by the Board of Missionary Preparation of which 
Dr. Stanley White, of the Board of Foreign Missions of the 
Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, was 
the chairman) which was in turn the outgrowth of a detailed 
questionnaire, sent out to a large number of representative 
missionaries and answered in detail by an unusually large 
percentage of those addressed. This conference, through its 
own committee, summed up its conclusions in a report which 
made a number of specific suggestions regarding the proper 
organization required, both by mission Boards and by mis- 
sions in the field, for dealing efficiently with the furlough 
problems of the alert missionary.! This report was given 
wide circulation in North America and throughout the 
American mission world early in 1920. It bids fair to achieve 
in good measure the end in view. The conference also 
expressed the definite judgment that a thorough revision of 

1 The report issued by this conference is reproduced in an appendix, page 29. 


the previously issued pamphlet regarding the furlough should 
be undertaken by the committee of the Board of Missionary 
Preparation which had submitted the above-mentioned 
report to the conference. In response to this request the 
committee presents the following report, which seeks to 
include the valued suggestions of the early leaflet, but has 
been wholly rewritten. As in case of the first issue the 
furlough is dealt with in broad fashion, not merely as it 
relates to the interests of the junior missionary. These 
interests predominate, but any helpful treatment of the 
furlough question must of necessity view the subject as a 
whole. The committee has spared no pains to make the 
report an accurate reflection of the soundest administrative 
and missionary judgment of today. 

The furlough problem is perennially a fresh one. New 
aspects are constantly coming into consideration. It is the 
desire of the Board of Missionary Preparation to keep this 
pamphlet up to date. Any helpful suggestions from any 
critical reader will at all times be received with appreciation. 
They should be sent to the undersigned. 


FRANK K. SANDERS, 
Director of the Board of M isstonary Preparation. 


August, 1921. 


ih 
Il. 


100 & 


LV: 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 
THEPOCUC LION ete alot alu Hein) ehoieen eS Single pare ss 7,8 
The Various Values of the Furlough............-. 8-12 

1. Physical reinvigoration.........--.+++++++- 8 
2. Mental upbuilding..............++++eeeeee 9 
3. Spiritual stimulus..........-.-----+eee eee 9 
4. Contact with the homeland..............-- 10 
5. The cultivation of the churches at home..... 10 
6. Co-operation with the mission Board........ 11 
7. The maintenance of a perspective.......---- 11 
Qed her VAIes eer ie cee eee vent Ss ae ¥s 11 
Preparation for the Furlough......-.-.-+-++++++: 12-14 
1. Preparation for the first furlough. ........-. 12 
2. Preparation for later furloughs.........-.-. 14 
General Questions Relating to the Missionary 
Worlough tai spec ss mine ee hd sinaia ace ie t 14-19 
1. Its frequency........-.05-- eee shesee eee: 14 
2. Hee length aay stone vata ae ae eias ie ee ye et 15 
3. The allowance while at home...........---- 16 
4. The distribution of time.........-..++++++- 18 
5. The missionary’s location. .........+++++++: 19 
The Administrative Machinery Needed.........-. 20-22 
1. Furlough administration on the field........ 20 
2. Furlough administration at home........... 20 
3. The advisory service of the Board of Mission- 
ary Preparation. ......---+++++eeee reese 21 


The Practical Management of the Missionary Fur- 


lough Meee a tek ices we re eae 22-25 
1. The assurance of physical well-being........ 22 
2. Ways of mental energizing. ......--.++.-+-+. 23 - 
8. The obtaining of spiritual stimulus.......... 24 


4, The acquiring of practical experience........ 24 


PAGE 
VII. The Contributions of the Missionary Furlough to the 


Missionary Enterprise................... 25-27 

1. The cultivation of the home church......... 25 

2. The magnifying of the cause of missions..... 26 

3. The promotion of international friendship.... 26 

4. The wise formulation of missionary policy.... 27 

VITT.:" Conclusion? (sii gegen: Gee meee oo gee 28 


APPENDIX I. The Findings of the Conference on the Most 
Profitable Use of the Missionary Furlough 29, 30 


ApPENDIXII. Practical Suggestions fora Furlough Calendar 31 


AppEeNDIx III. Suggestions Regarding Deputation Service 31 


THE MISSIONARY FURLOUGH 


I. INTRODUCTION 


The importance of the furlough in relation to missionary 
efficiency cannot be overstated. The total number of f oreign 
missionaries supported by North American Boards and 
Societies in 1921 is well above eleven thousand. With the 
increasing frequency of furloughs deemed wise under modern 
missionary administration, and taking into account the great 
enlargement of missionary forces called for at the present 
time, it is fully within bounds to say that not less than 
twenty-five hundred missionaries will soon be coming 
annually to their North American homeland for regular 
furloughs. Inasmuch as the full period of absence from the 
field requires, as a rule, about fifteen months, an attempt to 
secure the wisest possible use of the missionary furlough 
takes into consideration, each year, some three thousand 
years of North American missionary time, which means an 
investment of more than a million dollars. Were the Prot- 
estant foreign missionaries of the whole world included within 
the survey, these figures, startling as they are, would be 
multiplied threefold. The effective spending of all this 
potential energy and of all this money justifies the most 
painstaking planning on the part of Boards, of missions and 
of missionaries. 

The scientific use of the missionary furlough has never 
been adequately considered. Its proper adjustments must 
grow out of the rich experience of missionaries, modified and 
interpreted in the light of the new problems which contin- 
ually face the mission enterprise. In former days the prin- 
cipal objectives of the furlough were the maintenance of the 
health of the missionary, his possible contribution to the 
education of the churches of his communion and the raising 
of its missionary budget. Today, emphasis is being given 
more and more, in addition, to the bearing of the furlough 
opportunity on the adequate preparation of the missionary 
to deal with his ever-broadening task. 

7 


8 THE MISSIONARY FURLOUGH 


The tragedy of the furlough question lies in the fact that 
even at the present time many missionaries are prevented by 
meagre resources, by strong family or local ties, by denomi- 
national financing or campaigning, or by other reasons, 
equally commanding yet not wholly defensible, from gaining 
the values which the furlough ought to have for one who has 
been spending his energy without stint for a term of burdened 
and anxious years on the field. Too many missionaries are 
obliged under existing conditions to spend their furloughs 
in tasks which bid defiance to the proper ideals of a furlough. 
The way out would seem to be a better organization of 
furlough conditions which will fix the responsibility for their 
betterment with some definiteness. 


II. Tue Various VALUES oF THE FURLOUGH 
No two missionaries are exactly alike, in their needs or in 
the conditions which surround them. No formulation of 
values can ever be made which will fit the case of each indi- 
vidual missionary. It is possible, however, by drawing on 
instructive missionary experience to indicate the principal 
purposes which a missionary’s furlough ought to fulfill. 


1. Physical Reinvigoration. — A prime asset of the mis- 
sionary is physical well-being. Without good health no 
adequate service can be rendered anywhere. He and his 
Board should aim to make each furlough contribute to the 
maintenance of vigorous bodily health. This should involve 
a regular medical inspection on the field during periods of 
service in order to guard against the breaking down of 
health. It certainly should involve thorough medical exami- 
nations, at the direction and expense of the Board, by a 
disinterested expert, at the very outset of each furlough, to 
serve the Board as a guide to the detailed treatment needed 
to restore or to enhance the physical well-being of the 
missionary and of his family. Such expenditures are regarded 
by all Boards as economical. They keep the missionary at 
his best. Aside from medical treatment, however, it is clear 
that an important value of the regular furlough to the mis- 
sionary will be found in a relaxation from the responsibility 
that work on the field always involves. This is found in 


THE MISSIONARY FURLOUGH 9 


small measure in the comparative leisure of the voyage to and 
from the field, but notably in the entire change of climate, 
surroundings and interests enjoyed during the furlough. 


2. Mental Upbuilding. — Every missionary realizes his 
need of a fresh mental stimulus and returns to his homeland 
keenly desirous of obtaining it. The junior missionary, 
returning home for his first furlough, feels this to a pre- 
eminent degree. He may well look upon the first furlough 
as being really the conclusion of his long course of thoughtful 
preparation for missionary efficiency, utilizing it, so far as 
conditions permit, as an educational opportunity. Much of 
the advance of recent days in missionary statesmanship has 
concerned itself with the furnishing of proper educational 
opportunities for those missionaries who realize their needs. 
Such opportunities are as truly, if not quite so obviously, 
needed for other classes of missionaries as for the medical 
missionary or for the teacher. Every missionary, in order 
to be fitted to grip his own responsibilities afresh, and to 
broaden his vision of the missionary program, needs to meet 
a new group of minds, to be confronted with other problems 
than his own, and to realize how his homeland has moved 
along since his last contact with it. 


3. Spiritual Stimulus. — No missionary fails to crave the 
opportunity to make his furlough count in gaining a fresh 
intellectual and spiritual viewpoint, or a clearer apprehension 
of many of the religious problems which he may have had to 
face in his public ministry or in private interviews. The 
privilege of sharing in the stimulus of a summer conference, 
of a pastor’s retreat or of a summer school is very highly 
valued. Even more precious may be the joy of sharing once 
more in the regular services of a congregation at home and 
of standing side by side with those at home who have not 
been able to go out to the mission field, yet are in full and 
rich sympathy with those who have gone. Such experiences 
in fellowship send the true missionary back to his task with 
renewed confidence, greater hopefulness, added zeal, and 
with a deeper appreciation of the value of such fellowship 
to the national Christians and churches of his field. 


10 THE MISSIONARY FURLOUGH 


4. Contact with the Homeland. — An earnest missionary 
is in a very real sense in danger of expatriation. His real 
home is where he does his work. His adopted country has 
come to absorb his first and best thoughts. He may not 
realize this until after his first furlough, but it is true. 
A veteran missionary needs a furlough home, in order that 
he may not lose an essential social contact with his home 
base. He needs not merely to renew family ties, to continue 
old friendships and to make new affiliations, but to come 
into fresh contact with his own Board, its officers, and its 
constituents, and to renew his relationship with his homeland 
and its growing, changing interests. The more thoroughly 
he comprehends his own and his adopted people, the better 
able he will be to act effectively as a medium of mutual 
understanding, thus rendering a genuine international 
service. He who is to render such service, however, 
must not get too far away from the interests of his home 
people. 


5. The Cultivation of the Churches at Home. — Every mis- 
sionary, however young, needs to renew an intimate con- 
nection with the group of churches which he represents. 
Moreover, junior missionaries have a recognized value in 
reaching with their stirring messages the hearts of young 
people. Yet it is particularly the privilege of the older 
missionary, returning for his third or fourth furlough and 
speaking with the authority of experience, to assist in 
cultivating the general interest of these churches in the 
missionary enterprise and to clarify their thinking regarding 
his own particular field and its outstanding problems. More 
and more, such capable missionaries, through the co-oper- 
ative organization of mission interests on the home field, are 
being enabled to serve a very wide range of Christian 
interests through their public addresses, their private inter- 
views, their printed articles and through their services in 
campaigns and at conventions. The thoughtful maintenance 
of a proper balance between the public service of a missionary 
and his personal growth in power and resourcefulness is a 
matter for constant consideration. 


THE MISSIONARY FURLOUGH 11 


6. Co-operation With the Mission Board. — Similarly, the 
furlough ought to be the opportunity of the missionary, 
habitually welcomed and questioned by the officers and 
managers of his Board, to bring to them well-studied, first- 
hand information regarding his particular field, to advise 
with them, and with the special committee on that field, 
when one exists, regarding the program which should be 
promoted and the methods of attack commensurate with 
its problems, and to co-operate with the home secretaries 
in the discovery of candidates. 


7. The Maintenance of a Perspective.— The busy mis- 
sionary lives a day at a time. He is dangerously prone to 
absorption in the interests of his small district or of his 
country. He is cramped by innumerable petty details, 
narrow streets, unresponsive people, sometimes by a hostile 
or depressing atmosphere. An occasional furlough will help 
him to see his missionary area as a whole and to evaluate it 
continentally and internationally. Set free from the engross- 
ing claims of his station, or of his department of work, or of 
his immediate task, he will be able to survey dispassionately 
the years of his own active service, to view his mission in 
its relationship to the whole work of his Board and the work 
of his denomination as compared with that of others. He 
will be able better to estimate the real influence of Christian 
teaching and life on his adopted people. Such perspectives - 
are of the highest value to the thoughtful student of the 
whole enterprise of missions. They enable the missionary 
to return to his own absorbing task with fresh energy and 
with renewed enthusiasm and to estimate it in its relation- 
ships to all other important tasks or movements. 


8. Other Values. — A furlough has many additional values 
for the active, thoughtful, alert missionary. Each one has 
his own method of utilizing his free time, some seeking to 
gain through observation a knowledge of successful methods 
of church management, or of social service, or of evangeli- 
zation. Others study progress along strictly professional 
lines. Still others enjoy denominational and interdenomina- 
tional service. Very many find opportunity, particularly in 


12 THE MISSIONARY FURLOUGH 


these days, for molding public opinion on the platform and 
through the public press. There are always a few whose 
physical weakness compels them to be inactive. No unchange- 
able practice can be laid down. 


Ill. PREPARATION FOR THE FURLOUGH 


One very important reason for past failures to use the 
missionary furlough to its best advantage has been a lack of 
preliminary planning. Furlough efficiency involves much 
thoughtful adjustment. The date of arrival in the homeland 
is often too late for the wisest allotment of furlough time 
and opportunity. It should, rather, be the time for a final 
judgment with regard to arrangements which have been 
given some previous consideration. 


1. Preparation for the First Furlough. — The first mission- 
ary furlough is probably the most important one of all to the 
missionary. It affords an opportunity for self-measurement, 
for specific adjustment to a long and active future, and for 
the thoughtful conclusion of the long course of preparation. 
Later furloughs will prove more valuable for deputation 
work because of the added field experience; but missionary 
administrators have practically agreed that the predomi- 
nating objective of the first furlough should be educational 
opportunity. 

In order to make the most of this opportunity every junior 
missionary should begin months in advance, as his busy life 
affords opportunity, to plan for the furlough. During the 
first term on the field he should have gained an ability to use 
the vernacular of his district or area, a real acquaintance 
with its people, their history and their ways, and a thorough 
introduction to the responsibilities of mission life. Each 
young missionary looking forward to a life of grave respon- 
sibility needs to determine as wisely as possible his or her 
lines of special usefulness. Such a determination will nor- 
mally rest on the judgment of the missionary community 
even more than on that of the individual missionary. It is 
highly desirable that each missionary unit on the field 
develop some special means of studying each one of its 


THE MISSIONARY FURLOUGH 13 


junior missionaries during this first term of service with a 
view of assisting in such a judgment. It goes without saying 
that any such plan should receive the approval of those to 
whom it is to apply and should be managed with scrupulous 
friendliness and fairness. 

Once made, this judgment may indicate the line of special 
study which the young missionary should undertake during 
the first furlough. On the other hand, the furlough may be 
needed even more definitely for meeting some deficiency in 
preparation gradually realized by the missionary. Any clear 
apprehension of specific need which approves itself to the 
missionary and to his associates on the field is likely to be 
approved by the Board at home. 

One of the truly significant movements of our own time 
in missionary education is the increase in candidates who 
have specialized along particular lines. This development is 
the natural outcome of new educational and missionary 
ideals. All the home colleges are encouraging their students 
to specialize. These students come to mission Boards with 
a very real sense that the best they have to give to the service 
of God on the mission field is embodied in those capacities 
which they have thus begun to develop. There is a corre- 
sponding condition on the field which creates a demand for 
specialized training during the furlough. The furlough serves 
a double purpose in such eases: it enables the narrowly 
trained specialist to generalize and the man of general 
training to develop some single capacity. 

Young people who are going to the field for the first time 
are rarely able to determine the lines along which they will 
work to best advantage during a long future. The first term 
of service will often reveal capacities, sometimes unsuspected, 
and will suggest a wise line of specialization to be undertaken 
during the first furlough, which will fit the recipient for’ 
leadership of the mission in some special capacity. Such 
leadership may, of course, be incidental to the continuance 
of established responsibilities. There is involved in all this 
some change in the present regulations, so that young people 
who have specialized for a particular task may have reason- 

1See further, page 20. 


14 THE MISSIONARY FURLOUGH 


able assurance that, when they return to the field, they will 
be given the opportunity to do the work for which they 
have prepared. Such a procedure becomes more certain 
when a mission develops the plan of friendly co-operation 
referred to above. 


2. Preparation for Later Furloughs — With growing expe- 
rience the missionary may regard himself as being in need of 
physical recreation and of a general stimulus, rather than of 
some specific line of long continued study. It will none the 
less be worth his while to plan his later furloughs with some 
definiteness and so as to include some real study. One mis- 
sionary reports the habit of beginning, months in advance 
of his date of starting homeward, a furlough notebook for 
the collection of suggestions to be realized during the 
anticipated furlough. It is increasingly possible during a 
year at home to utilize at least the brief term of a summer 
school in obtaining a fresh command of resources and in 
renewing an acquaintance with old studies from a point of 
view that is fresh. The more clearly the veteran missionary 
has certain definite purposes in mind, whatever their char- 
acter, the more likely he is to achieve them. 


IV. GENERAL QUESTIONS RELATING TO THE 
Missionary FuRLOUGH 


1. Its Frequency. — In the early decades of the missionary 
enterprise, furloughs, though not unknown, were relatively 
rare. As conditions of travel improved they came to be 
planned at ten year intervals. Gradually the length of 
standard terms of service in the field has been reduced until 
today, for mission fields lying within the temperate zone 
and offering reasonable vacational privileges, a period of 
seven years has been recognized as the average furlough 
term, while for fields lying within the tropics or in countries 
presenting conditions of unusual hazard and strain, the term 
has been placed at from five to three years. Some Boards 
shorten these standard periods slightly for unmarried women. 
Several of them permit a missionary to choose a short 
furlough of six months at home after four years of service 
in place of a whole year at home after seven years of service. 


THE MISSIONARY FURLOUGH | 15 


The chief disadvantage of this last mentioned arrangement 
is that so short a furlough is often only usable for physical 
rest. It is hardly fair, however, to base a furlough policy on 
so narrow a purpose. The missionary has a right to have a 
furlough which may be used predominantly for self-improve- 
ment. 

The period most in debate is the first period on the field. 
Many wise missionaries believe that seven years makes too 
long a period for the average junior missionary, and that a 
period of five years, as the first term on the field, is preferable. 
Within five years the missionary worth keeping on the field 
should have acquired the experience essential for that 
period and should have attained a sufficient grasp of the 
language to prevent serious loss of facility through a year’s 
absence. He is in some danger of growing stale and unpro- 
ductive, because of the strains of the first years. A furlough 
for study fits into actual needs and, as a rule, returns the 
young missionary to the field with true eagerness, with 
renewed enthusiasm, and with a deepened impression of the 
meaning and the worth of his own task. 


2. Its Length. — The prevailing judgment in regard to 
the length of the average furlough varies between twelve and 
fifteen months. The latter estimate usually covers two 
summers at home and the corresponding avoidance of two 
trying seasons on the field, when the work is at a minimum. 
There are those who advocate more frequent and shorter 
furloughs, where the expense of travel is not too great, in 
order to relieve the mission in the field from the necessity 
of furnishing a substitute to look after the missionary’s work 
and to enable the missionary on furlough to avoid the burden 
of setting up housekeeping. Such shorter furloughs may be 
advantageous for the veteran missionary, where feasible, 
but they lessen greatly the opportunity for definite study or 
for extensive participation in deputations or campaigns at 
home. All furloughs should vary in length in accordance 
with the time taken by the Board for its purposes, several 
months, at least, being allowed for strictly personal use. 
The general consensus of opinion seems to be that the 


16 THE MISSIONARY FURLOUGH 


standardized practice is thoroughly wise, but that departures 
from it should be always permissible for specific reasons. 
For missionaries to tropical, debilitating regions furlough 
arrangements have to be adjustable. 


3. The Allowance While at Home. — The question of a 
proper allowance to missionaries on furlough deserves 
thoughtful consideration by every mission Board. Not alone 
has there been a marked increase in living costs of every 
sort in recent years, applying particularly to the conditions 
amid which the missionary and his family must live, but 
also there are expenditures, often quite essential, which are 
sometimes overlooked. On the field a home is provided for 
the missionary ; during the furlough a house or a fair rooming 
allowance is equally necessary. Some Boards suspend a 
missionary’s salary while he is travelling from or to the 
home base, yet make no personal grant beyond a carefully 
audited expense allowance for that period of travel. This 
arrangement affords a missionary family very slight oppor- 
tunity for any unauthorized pleasure or profit. Many 
Boards begin to pay the furlough allowance at the end of 
the month to which it applies, placing the missionary some- 
times in an embarrassing and almost chronic condition of 
indebtedness. Few missionaries on furlough are granted, 
as a matter of course, a small miscellaneous allowance to 
cover such minor expenses as the postage, stationery and 
telegrams demanded by efficiency in promotion. Few of 
them feel able to buy coveted books and magazines or 
to attend lectures and concerts. Yet these matters are 
important. 

Freedom from worry and an ability to share, on a self- 
respecting basis, in the life of the home community entered 
are very essential factors in the usefulness of each furlough. 
Many missionaries worry so much that they fail to recuperate 
properly. They feel unable to attend inspirational meetings, 
or to undertake educational courses, because of the added 
expense. Such inability bears very heavily on the wife and 
mother. These restrictions are both unwise and unjust. 
A missionary occasionally goes back to his field with debts 


THE MISSIONARY FURLOUGH ve 


incurred, because his Board has refused to face his necessary 
outlays. One whose name is honored in missionary circles 
once declared that his first furlough cost him almost twice 
his allowance, and the second one almost four times as much. 
Most Boards have already concluded that the furlough 
allowance should be determined on the basis of the reason- 
able expense of travel, of life at home and of proper oppor- 
tunity. The furlough is not a period of inaction but of 
change. The allowance should afford that change without 
any assumption of debt. 

In case of those who are pursuing special studies a Board 
should provide for necessary tuition fees, if these are not 
remitted by the institution. It should likewise provide for 
railroad travel, especially if some distant institution is 
selected after consultation with the Board. Possibly the 
furlough organization of each Board should deal with each 
case separately and provide for all such expenses connected 
with these studies as are found to be in excess of the mis- 
sionary’s normal furlough expenses, providing, of course, 
that the missionary finds himself unable to meet these 
expenses and providing the Board approved of them before 
they were incurred. Among the arguments by which a 
Board can justify such expenditures are: (a) These studies 
aim to increase the missionary’s efficiency in the work of 
the Church. (b) Lacking such help from the Board the 
missionary must go back to his field imperfectly equipped. 
(c) The conditions of the mission field and of the missionary’s 
life abroad place limitations upon him, even when they 
become a general stimulus to his whole personal development, 
which make him desire such training as can be available 
only at home. (d) Sober business judgment justifies such 
investments. (e) The missionary force on the field regards 
such expenditure as imperative. 

There are, of course, not a few missionaries who are able, 
through their families, or by reason of private means, to 
provide for these special expenditures. It is their privilege 
and their duty to do this. Such cases are exceptional. Most 
missionaries must look to their Boards for the training 
needed. 


18 THE MISSIONARY FURLOUGH 


4. The Distribution of Time. —No definite rule can be 
framed for the distribution of the missionary’s furlough time. 
This must vary with the individual. Every missionary, 
however, should have an idea of the way in which he would 
like to distribute that time, and every department or com- 
mittee to which is assigned the important responsibility of 
furlough management should give it generous and serious 
consideration. The primary requirement of the missionary 
is a period of rest and recreation, presumably among friends. 
No serious work should be undertaken immediately upon 
arriving in America. Those who are not unduly debilitated 
will profit more by one month at a good sanitarium, or at 
an out-door camp of some sort, than by three or four months 
of ordinary visiting, which always involves excitement and 
extra strain. Those who have children at school in the home- 
land should have an opportunity to spend a month or so 
with them alone, so that the family unity may be maintained. 

Quite as important as the initial period of rest should be 
another similar period just before returning to the field. 
It is unwise for a missionary to plunge into the active respon- 
sibility of the field directly after a period of strenuous 
activity at home. The voyage should be helpful physically, 
but, according to the best medical opinion, it is insufficient 
for the adequate restoration of energy. Those affected by 
seasickness particularly require the rest. 

These periods of physical recreation at either end of the 
furlough allow ample time between for the achievement of 
the purposes which are close to the heart of the missionary 
and of those about him. The young missionary in his first 
furlough ought to have eight or nine months for study, for 
the simple reason that such courses as he needs are planned, 
as a rule, to run through an academic year. Such a young 
missionary will have a reasonable amount of time during 
those months to preach or speak, while making his studies 
his principal objective. Educational and medical mission- 
aries and other specialists will need some months at least 
during each furlough for observation and training. Veteran 
missionaries will not, as a rule, require any such amount of 
time for study, unless they are seeking to acquire the mastery 


THE MISSIONARY FURLOUGH 19 


of some highly specialized subject, although they of all men 
need to keep abreast of progress. A summer term at some 
university or at a first-rate summer school, when the longer 
residence at a standard institution is not feasible, will 
usually afford them the intellectual opportunity they crave, 
leaving considerable time for the administrative forces to 
use in introducing the missionary to his Church and, through 
him, the churches to his field. The necessary adjustments of 
the dates of arrival and departure are not difficult to arrange. 


5. The Missionary’s Location. — Most missionary fur- 
loughs are spent in the home country. To an increasing 
extent the missionaries who are thinking in terms of the 
whole missionary problem of their adopted people are, with 
the approval of the Boards, broadening their perspective 
and adding to their strength by visiting other countries along 
the route of travel in order to study their special problems 
and to meet their leaders. In the future, as in the past, a 
certain few will find it profitable to make an extended stay 
in Europe for purposes of study of this sort. 

The location of the missionary at home has usually been 
determined by his desire to be near relatives, or to provide 
educational advantages for his children, to live economically, 
or to have special opportunities for study. The tendency to 
make provision at first-rate educational and social centers, 
whereby missionary families can live together for a year at 
a reasonable expense, and the movement toward the provi- 
sion at university centers of accommodations which enable 
missionaries to enjoy educational advantages without 
undue expense are to be heartily commended? and should 
be multiplied. The whole question of location is of very great 
importance to the missionary on furlough. The wrong 
location may render the furlough quite unprofitable. The 
friendly counsel and co-operation of each mission Board may 
be highly serviceable to the missionary in this particular. 


1For interdenominational or non-denominational opportunities of this 
sort the Director of the Board of Missionary Preparation, 25 Madison Avenue, 
New York City, may be consulted. 


2°20 THE MISSIONARY FURLOUGH 


V. THe ADMINISTRATIVE MacHINnERY NEEDED 


It will be perfectly clear that the furlough cannot manage 
itself nor can the missionary be held responsible for its 
efficiency. The problem of the wise use of the furlough is 
properly an administrative problem, both on the field and 
at home, deserving and demanding a more thoughtful 
attention than has hitherto been given to it. 


1. Furlough Administration on the Field. — The valuable 
conference held December, 1919, in New York City, on 
“The Most Profitable Use of the Missionary Furlough,”’ 
made specific recommendations regarding the best method 
of assisting the missionary on the field to determine the 
wisest use of his furlough. It suggested that each mission 
in the field be asked to create some method of guiding the 
studies and other activities of each of its junior missionaries 
during the first term on the field, so as to enable a report to 
be made to the Board at home in advance of the first furlough 
regarding any deficiencies in training which ought to be 
remedied, such special abilities as were worthy of cultivation, 
and the particular type of service for which the missionary 
seemed peculiarly fitted, and to enable the mission on the 
field and the young missionary to reach a common conviction 
concerning the plans which should, if practicable, be carried 
out during the first furlough. 

A mission committee, properly chosen, tactful in its 
methods and friendly in spirit, could be of very great value, 
not alone to the junior missionary, but to older missionaries, 
assisting them to reach a conviction regarding the wisest 
possible plans for a prospective furlough. It might work 
out a simple efficiency test for its own area which would 
enable a young missionary to measure his own progress and 
would give his seniors a basis of estimation. Such tasks are 
delicate but not unimportant. Any practicable method, 
however, of attaining the end sought is to be commended. 


2. Furlough Administration at Home. — To give all plans 
relating to the use of furloughs their maximum efficiency 
each home Board should provide definitely through some 
kind of standing committee for the systematic management 


THE MISSIONARY FURLOUGH 21 


of furlough arrangements. Such a committee, on which the 
corresponding secretary or secretaries should, of course, be 
amply represented because of familiarity with the field and 
the missionaries, would wisely have an executive, often the 
secretary of the candidate department, responsible for 
attending to the multifarious details. Without such an 
executive furlough ideals are difficult of realization. On 
behalf of the committee the executive secretary could take 
an initiative with missionaries with furloughs in prospect in 
regard to their wisest use, could carry on all furlough corre- 
spondence, could arrange the necessary administrative details 
relating to the furlough at home, and, as far as possible, 
reach these determinations, not only through correspondence, 
but by an individual contact with the missionary and a 
friendly study of his whole case. He could “‘follow through,” 
so as to be able to make finally a definite estimate of the 
values gained by the missionary during the furlough to the 
mission to which he belongs. With such an executive behind 
him the average missionary would be spared much embar- 
rassment. The service needed is personal. Much, wise, 
friendly, thoughtful planning is required, if missionaries, 
the churches and the Boards are each to profit in the fullest 
degree by each furlough. 


3. The Advisory Service of the Board of Missionary Prep- 
aration. — Whatever a group on the field or a friendly and 
able administrative committee at home may conclude 
regarding the plans which each missionary should carry 
through, there will usually remain a number of technical 
questions to be solved regarding the best possible way of 
accomplishing them under the existing limitations of oppor- 
tunity and previous experience. Such a solution calls for an 
intimate knowledge of actual conditions at educational 
institutions and semi-educational enterprises which neither 
the missionary nor his natural advisers may possess. He is 
in some danger of making an inferior use of his time and 
opportunity. The Board of Missionary Preparation exists 
in part for the purpose of giving such advice on consultation, 
either prior to the return to America or at any stage of the 


749d THE MISSIONARY FURLOUGH 


furlough. The Board is the efficiency expert of the Boards 
collectively on matters relating to missionary training, and 
welcomes at any time a request for information or advice. 
Lists of educational institutions of various types, of assem- 
blies and conventions, of observational centers and the like 
cannot well be published in a permanent pamphlet. Infor- 
mation regarding such matters is always available at the 
office of the Board at general missionary headquarters, 
25 Madison Avenue, New York City, or will be obtained at 
request. A visit to these headquarters, while unnecessary, 
will reward the missionary on furlough by affording some 
idea of the extent of co-operative responsibility for the mis- 
sionary advances of today and a glimpse, at least, of the 
remarkable Missionary Research Library. 


VI. Tue Practica, MANAGEMENT OF THE 
MisstionaRY FURLOUGH 

The furlough, as suggested on pages 8-12, has a variety of 
values for the missionary himself. The realization of these 
values justifies the following suggestions: 

1. The Assurance of Physical Well-Being. — Sound, vigo- 
rous health is a supremely important asset for any missionary. 
Many, indeed, have accomplished wonders, although ignor- 
ing every hygienic law and possessing only fragments of a 
real constitution. These are, of course, exceptional cases. 
The religious efficiency of any missionary is commonly only 
in fair proportion to his physical vigor. 

One unvarying use of a furlough should, therefore, be the 
physical reinvigoration of the missionary. This ought to 
involve five steps for which each Board through its furlough 
organization should make regular provision: (1) A careful 
medical appraisal at the very outset of the furlough by a 
competent diagnostician, skilled in discovering weaknesses; 
(2) a course of treatment at a sanitarium, if necessary, for 
any weakness which such an independent examination 
develops; (3) a period of genuine rest under conditions 
approved by a competent medical adviser, at the outset of 
the furlough and just before its close; (4) the postponement 
of all other objectives until the medical adviser is satisfied 


THE MISSIONARY FURLOUGH 23 


as regards the physical status of the missionary; and (5) 
another medical examination, as a sort of insurance, just 
before sailing. 

True physical well-being involves much more than a bodily 
organism which is able to function normally and a sense of 
restfulness and energy. The missionary is entitled to more 
than a change of climate and of the scene of activity; he 
ought to enjoy himself with books and music and friends. 
He is tempted by conditions on the field and at home to be 
too intense, too fully absorbed by missionary problems. 
Relaxation pays. Some missionaries look back upon a 
furlough as a sort of nightmare, to be forgotten, if possible. 
Such experiences are usually due to financial anxiety; they 
should be practically impossible. 


2. Ways of Mental Energizing. — Of equal value with 
physical well-being to the missionary is mental alertness. 
Most missionaries feel mentally impoverished by the con- 
tinual drains of active service, with its meagre opportunities 
for study or reflection. They crave a mental freshening and 
find it in a variety of ways. Some desire to take a regular 
course of study; others crave stirring companionship; still 
others find their most helpful stimulus in contact with new 
problems in religion, or in society. All crave access to good 
libraries, to museums, lectures, concerts and the like. A few 
weeks spent at a well-developed summer session, such as 
that at the University of Chicago, or at Harvard, or at 
Columbia, or at Chautauqua, which aims to furnish for the 
leaders of communities a strong cultural program, intensively 
handled, is of the greatest advantage to the active-minded 
missionary, who is not following some well-defined course of 
study. He may come in contact with a new world. Many of 
his positions will undoubtedly be challenged, but that sort 
of challenge is mentally healthy. A specific course, however 
short, on some neglected theme of study is worth far more 
than desultory attention. 

Much mental stimulus is derivable from an intimate, 
social contact with the churches and with their normal con- 
stituency. The missionary on furlough should set himself 


24 THE MISSIONARY FURLOUGH 


the task of convincing a few unconventional, free-speaking 
audiences, such as boys, working men, business men, or old 
friends, of the real values of missionary work. He will gain 
and will give fresh viewpoints. He will be fortunate, if he 
comes in contact also with minds which challenge his own 
conclusions, forcing him to reconsider and restate his 
cherished ideas. 


3. The Obtaining of Spiritual Stimulus. — Every true mis- 
sionary desires to be continually enriched in spiritual expe- 
rience and looks forward with eagerness to a quickening of 
his entire religious life during a furlough. This will sometimes 
be achieved through good courses of Bible study or of 
theology and kindred subjects at a summer school, or through 
courses of reading; more generally it will be gained in renewed 
participation in the familiar worship of earlier days, in con- 
ference with like-minded friends. Often a great spiritual 
uplift and outlook will come through one of the great annual 
meetings of his Church, or in the inspiring fellowship of a 
devotional retreat. What Keswick has been to hosts of 
British Christian workers, Chautauqua, Winona, or North- 
field seek very definitely to become to American leaders. 


4. The Acquiring of Practical Experience. — Nearly every 
missionary is responsible for the inauguration, or for the 
management of enterprises in regard to which he has had 
no adequate experience. He highly values an opportunity to 
see the same conditions when handled by experts. The 
manager of an industrial training school for boys or girls 
could gain much value out of a brief sojourn at such a school 
as Hampton, studying the problems of management as there 
worked out. A missionary from a crowded Oriental city 
might profit greatly by a short term as a temporary, unpaid 
associate of the head of a great institutional church plant. 
A missionary interested in the methods found useful in 
dealing with the wretchedly poor would gain many ideas out 
of a brief contact with the work of a city missionary society, 
if well managed, or of a first-rate welfare board or charity 
organization society. A teacher should not fail to inspect 
a series of schools of the type for which he is, or is to be 


THE MISSIONARY FURLOUGH 25 


responsible. A medical missionary needs to study hospitals 
and to frequent clinics. A mission Board can well afford to 
pay the small cost involved in such inspections. Obviously 
these opportunities cannot be listed. The specific needs 
are too varied and individual. The Board of Missionary 
Preparation is ready to offer its services in helping to connect 
a real need with its best available solution. 


VII. Tse ContTRIBUTIONS OF THE MIssIONARY FURLOUGH 
TO THE MIssIoNARY ENTERPRISE 


Aside from the benefits which accrue directly and per- 
sonally to the missionary during a furlough, there are other 
values which may mean much to the cause of missions. 


1. The Cultivation of the Home Church. — At the last 
conference on the Missionary Furlough a veteran missionary 
expressed the opinion that the first furlough should be 
largely devoted to further education; the second one, in 
about equal proportions, to self-improvement and to the 
cultivation of the churches; and the third and later ones 
rather fully to such service as the missionary is able to 
render his Church. No exact scale can be or should be laid 
down; yet the missionary of ripe experience should be eager 
to find opportunities for meeting such ministers and churches 
as are open to him. No other person can speak with his 
power or with his assurance. It is unreasonable that this 
obligation should be laid upon him without regard to his 
special ability, his convenience or his plans. The proper 
committee and executive of the Board will be needed to lay 
out his route, to secure openings for him and serve as a 
managing agency for him. Few missionaries can open doors 
without a promoting agency. But given proper conditions, 
the service such a missionary can render is beyond com- 
putation. 

Not all missionaries are fitted for this task. Some dislike 
it so greatly, because of real or imagined unfitness, that their 
service is of little value. Under suitable management the 
number of those who are really unusable is much reduced. 
Each Board can discover those who truly stimulate the 
churches. 


26 THE MISSIONARY FURLOUGH 


The cultivation of the churches may be carried out in a 
great variety of ways: through sermons from the pulpit, 
lectures to all kinds of clubs, articles for the press, books 
interpreting a field and discussions with classes or at forums. 
Aw active-minded missionary can thus enlarge to a con- 
siderable degree the missionary constituency of his Church 
and increase the respect and the enthusiasm of the regular 
supporters of mission work. 

Such service calls for careful preparation by the missionary 
while still on the field. He is under moral obligation to make 
his message as interesting as possible. He should prepare 
himself with great care to give a constructive as well as 
entertaining picture of the field and its needs with an appro- 
priate background of national history and conditions. The 
missionary enterprise can be so presented as to stir and 
convince hard-headed business men. 


2. The Magnifying of the Cause of Missvons. — The 
missionary, of all men, can forward or check the progress of 
the mission cause in the locality where he settles down to 
spend his furlough. If he shares the life of the community 
in a real way, while being known as a missionary, he usually 
wins its regard and respect. Whatever he does to justify 
and cultivate this attitude of the community not only affords 
him many natural opportunities to give a clear picture of 
the problems of his field and of his relation to them, but 
dignifies and establishes the appeal of the missionary enter- 
prise to many who would otherwise misconceive its value. 


3. The Promotion of International Friendship. —'The 
missionary has a third general function, which increases in 
importance with every decade during which the world is 
erowing smaller. He can do more than most men to inform 
those with whom he is in contact in the homeland concerning 
the real qualities of the people among whom he has been 
laboring. There are few persons equally qualified to under- 
stand and to interpret that people to his own nation. He is 
not merely their defender and advocate, but their brother 
and ‘next friend.’”’ The missionary knows that a people 


THE MISSIONARY FURLOUGH Ze 


referred to contemptuously by many of his countrymen as 
“‘Chinks,” or ‘‘Japs,’”’ or by some such slighting term, is 
worthy of respect; and he can do more than any one else to 
transmit that feeling of his to his own community. When 
English-speaking peoples respect a nation of another type 
they have laid a basis for real friendship. The missionary 
in years to come may be the most important factor in the 
promotion of genuine internationalism. He is an ambassador 
of Christian brotherhood. He must do this work through 
voice and pen, as the opportunity comes. Women from the 
foreign field have a special opportunity through women’s 
clubs which they should not be slow to grasp, as opportunities 
develop. Whoever has a real message worth hearing, based 
upon fresh and reliable knowledge, need have no lack of 
hearers in America in these days. Such an one, however, 
must be reasonably aggressive, seeking opportunity rather 
than waiting for it. 


4. The Wise Formulation of Missionary Policy. — Mis- 
sionary statesmanship is the exclusive product, neither of 
the office and the library, nor of active service. It must 
utilize ripe experience of many sorts, face actual situations 
and be based on data from every source. 

Reference has already been made to the opportunity, 
valued highly by every able missionary, to discuss with the 
proper authorities at the home base the Board’s policy in 
his field, and to express his own judgment with reference to 
the details of administration to which he is definitely related. 
Such conferences have a bearing upon general policies. 
There are those, today, who would favor an annual confer- 
ence of furloughed and retired missionaries, controlled in 
large measure if not wholly by them, as a means of giving 
expression to experienced missionary opinion on questions 
of missionary efficiency. The Foreign Missions Conference 
affords no free forum of the sort. The meetings of the Inter- 
national Missionary Union offer the closest approach of 
today to such a conference and might easily develop into 
an annual gathering of great significance. 


28 THE MISSIONARY FURLOUGH 


VIII. CoNncLusIoNn 


It is clear that the furlough is an important section of the 
well-organized missionary life. To neglect its opportunities 
is to make a serious error. It should be thoughtfully con- 
sidered by the missionary himself, by his mission on the 
field, by his Board at home, and by those with whom he 
may be associated during the furlough. It has possibilities 
of value which are only in rare cases fully realized. 

It should, under normal circumstances, contribute in 
varying proportions to three needs of the missionary. (1) 
To his happiness. It is tragic to have a young, energetic, 
valuable missionary write during his eighth year of active 
service, ‘‘One is not so anxious to return to America after 
the experience of the first furlough.” Each furlough should 
be recalled with keen satisfaction. (2) To his efficiency. 
At the close of each furlough the missionary ought to be 
prepared better than ever before to face with resourcefuness 
and confidence the growing responsibilities of his sacred task. 
(3) To his range of thinking. Each furlough, through contact 
with broadening influences, through reading and through 
observation and reflection, should accustom a missionary to 
think of his work from a delocalized, judicial point of view, 
which will enable him to balance his enthusiasm by sound 
judgment. 

Proper organization will help to develop the best values of 
the furlough, but organization by itself is insufficient. Every 
missionary should be an active, not a passive, factor in the 
process. The furlough is, in an important sense, his affair; 
it will be a success or a failure in proportion as he is willing 
to contribute thought and pains to its success. With reason- 
able initiative on his part the other agencies will tend to 
collaborate successfully. 

When this takes place the furlough will be given its true 
place as an important element in missionary efficiency. 


THE MISSIONARY FURLOUGH 29 


APPENDIX I 


Tue FINDINGS OF THE CONFERENCE ON THE Most ProritaBLe Usr 
oF THE Missionary FuRLOUGH 


A Conference on the Missionary Furlough, under the auspices of the Board 
of Missionary Preparation, was held at 25 Madison Avenue, New York City, 
on December 2, 1919. It had a net attendance of one hundred and ten. Sixty- 
three were missionaries, representing nineteen Boards, fifteen denominations, 
and nineteen missionary areas. Twenty-seven of these were general mis- 
sionaries, thirty were educational missionaries, two were medical missionaries, 
three were doing literary work and thirteen were doing miscellaneous forms 
of work among women. Forty-six delegates represented twenty-nine North 
American mission Boards; sixteen represented faculties interested in problems 
of advanced missionary training. The China Continuation Committee had 
one representative, while the Board of Missionary Preparation furnished 
sixteen. Thus the Conference was quite representative. 

Its findings were as follows: 

The Conference on the Most Profitable Use of the Missionary Furlough, 
recognizing that there is an insistent demand from every mission field for 
missionaries who are thoroughly trained for service and that such thorough 
training is a matter of careful individual adjustment during a term of years, 
and believing it to be of great importance from the administrative point of 
view that careful attention be given to a wise use of the missionary’s first 
period on the field and his first furlough as a unit of preparation for full, per- 
manent service, makes the following recommendations: 

1. That a far more systematic use of the first missionary furlough should 
be distinctly reckoned as an essential part of the training of young missionaries, 
and that each mission Board in North America be urged to adopt a policy 
providing for the use of the first furlough as an opportunity for securing the 
additional preparation which is contemplated. 

2. That the duration of the first term of service on the field should conse- 
quently be shortened to a maximum length of five years, it being understood 
that as a rule this period will be sufficient for a thorough introduction to the 
giemue missionary area, to its language requirements and to the task to which 
the individual missionary is called. : 

3. That the first furlough should be at least one full year in length, in 
order that there may be available an adequate amount of time for securing the 
needed preparation, either in such study or in the acquisition of such forms 
of definite practical experience as will equip the individual for the task to 
which he is to return. 

4. That, in order to give a training emphasis to the first furlough, the use 
of the young missionary in deputation work should be reduced to a minimum. 

5. That the wise use of the first furlough requires the co-operative judgment 
and action of at least three factors — the young missionary, the mission group 
on the field to which he belongs, and the Board at home. if 

6. That each mission in the field be asked to create some method of guiding 
the studies and other activities of each of its junior missionaries during the 
first term on the field, so as (1) To give each one the benefit of the frequent 
counsel of those of mature missionary experience; (2) to enable and encourage 
the young missionary to find the task for which he is best fitted and to avoid 
the danger of his becoming involved in too many differing phases of the work; 
(3) to enable a report to be made to the Board at home, in advance of the 
first furlough of each missionary, regarding his competency for further service, 
any deficiencies in training which might be remedied, such special abilities 
as are worthy of cultivation and the particular type of service for which he 
seems peculiarly fitted; (4) to enable the mission on the field and the young 
missionary to reach a common conviction concerning the specific plans which 
should, if practicable, be carried out during his first furlough. 


30 THE MISSIONARY FURLOUGH 


7. That each Board be requested to provide within itself for the systematic 
management of furlough arrangements through a standing committee, which 
shall have charge of all furlough correspondence with missionaries, receive 
the preliminary reports from the field regarding them, act upon necessary 
administrative details, such as the length of furlough approved, the place of 
residence during furlough, the special allowance required, the courses of study 
or practical experience, the institutions or organizations at which these courses 
may be pursued, and the non-educational demands made upon the missionary’s 
furlough time, and, finally, make a full report of the use made of the furlough 
to the mission to which the missionary belongs. 

8. That each Board be requested to make financial provision for missionaries 
on furlough, based on a scale of needs in America, and supplemental provision 
for those unusual expenditures involved in carrying out the approved plans. 

9. That, when a missionary on furlough has fulfilled in good faith the plans 
previously endorsed by his mission and by the furlough committee of his 
Board, he should, except in the event of some extraordinary and unanticipated 
situation on the field, be assured of being assigned to the work for which he 
has been preparing; and that it be suggested to mission Boards and to missions 
on the field that their present rules be so modified as to make this possible. 

10. That the North American mission Boards be urged to encourage their 
missions in the field to make free use of the advisory aid of the Board of 
Missionary Preparation in planning for the work which the junior missionary 
is to pursue while home on furlough. 

11. That each mission in the field and each committee on furlough at the 
home base be urged to give thoughtful attention to all missionary furloughs 
so that they may be the means of a complete refreshing — physical, intellectual 
and spiritual. 

12. That the Board of Missionary Preparation be requested to prepare a 
fresh pamphlet on the Missionary Furlough, based upon its experience during 
the past few years and upon results gleaned in connection with this Conference 
and conferences in the field, this pamphlet to be used for the information and 
guidance of missionaries, missions in the field and mission boards and insti- 
tutions. 


during the next few years. 


Rev. Srantey Waits, D.D., Chairman, New York City 
Rev. Georas ALLCHIN, Osaka, Japan 

Rev. Wru1aM I. CHAMBERLAIN, Pu.D., New York City 
Rev. Paut ErpMan, Zahleh, Syria 

Rev. Courtenay H. Fenn, D.D., Peking, China 

Pror. Danieu J. Fiemine, Px.D., New York City 
Rev. D. Wittarpd Lyon, D.D., Shanghai, China 

Mrs. Huco A. Mutter, M.D., Urumia, Persia 

Pror. Cuarence A. Nerr, Foochow, China 

Rev. Cornetius H. Parron, D.D., Boston, Mass. 
Miss ELLEN J. Peterson, Hangchow, China 

S. Earu Taytor, LL.D., New York City 

Pres. WILBERT W. Wuit#, Pu.D., New York City 


THE MISSIONARY FURLOUGH 31 


APPENDIX II 
PracticaL SUGGESTIONS FOR A FurLouGH CALENDAR 


1. Second Year before Furlough. — Apply thoughtfully the suggestions of 
this pamphlet to your own case. Make out a tentative program for the wisest 
use of your furlough. Send a copy of this to your Corresponding Secretary for 
comment. 

2. The Year before Furlough. — Consult your fellow missionaries and the 
mission regarding your revised program. Let the appropriate secretary or 
committee of your Board know the resulting judgment. Write home for 
catalogues of the institutions you think of attending. Take a medical examina- 
tion on the field for yourself and your family. It may develop reasons for 
altering your anticipated program. 

3. The Furlough Year. — On the way home review and revise your program 
for the whole furlough year. Promptly advise your Board of arrival at home 
destination. Secure a thorough medical examination by a physician authorized 
by the medical officer of your home Board. Consult with the proper officer 
regarding final plans for the whole furlough. Take a period of rest, as ordered 
by the medical officer. Let those who would naturally wish to share in your 
furlough time know how your plans will work out. Work out your furlough 
program as finally determined. Try to reserve another rest period just before 
tise to the field. Have another thorough physical examination before 
sailing. 


APPENDIX III 


Suaasstions REGARDING DEPUTATION SERVICE 


The missionary who desires to share effectively in deputation work among 
the churches while at home may well keep in mind three suggestions: 

1. An effective message implies adequate preparation. The time to begin 
such preparation is while on the field. Each mission field stands in certain 
important relations with the rest of the world, has pressing problems, excites 
general interest from certain viewpoints. Every missionary should be able 
to represent his adopted country as a whole and to give an audience some 
sense of its national values, as well as to represent his particular institution, 
station or district. One who speaks with conviction and authority out of a 
rich experience, can always command an interested hearing. 

2. A missionary message should be distinctly concrete. Apt illustrations 
out of personal or group experience are universally valuable, when tersely 
and clearly stated. Well-chosen lantern slides, curios or costumes, and what- 
ever illustrates actual life, help to drive home the missionary message impres- 
sively. Such material is of little value unless carefully chosen. 

3. Before any audience the missionary may wisely try to achieve one or 
more of the following specific aims: (2) The broadening of the religious and 
mental horizon of every one of the audience. (b) The impression of practically 
minded men and women with the concrete values of missionary service. (c) The 
development of reliable supporters for mission work, those who will get behind 
it with their money and those who will support it by their intercessory prayers. 
The adding of those who help to meet the stated budget of the Board on which 
all mission work depends is more crucial than pushing some local or personal 
need. (d) The kindling in some heart of a desire to volunteer for such a heroic 
task as that of the modern missionary. (e) The identification in the minds 
of the most spiritually minded hearers of the missionary enterprise as an 
inevitable and inescapable part of the spiritual task of the Church, depend- 
ent upon and contributary to the spiritual life of all those who ‘‘love His 
appearing.” 


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PUBLICATIONS OF THE 


Board of Missionary Preparation 


OF INTEREST TO MISSIONARIES 
ON THE FIELD 





The Board of Missionary Preparation publishes, 
in addition to the large number of pamphlets relating 
to missionary preparation prepared specifically for 
missionary candidates, two series which are of partic- 
ular interest and value to junior missionaries. 


THE PRESENTATION OF CHRISTIANITY 
: TO VARIOUS PEOPLES 


The Presentation of Christianity in Confucian Lands. 
Price 50 cents. 


The Presentation of Christianity to Hindus. 
Price 50 cents. 
The Presentation of Christianity to Moslems. 
Price 50 cents. 
The Presentation of Christianity to Buddhists. 
(Almost ready.) 
The Presentation of Christianity to Primitive Peoples. 
(in course of preparation.) 


The Presentation of the Evangelical Message to Roman 
Peoples. 


THE PERSONAL LIFE OF THE MISSIONARY 


The Spiritual Life of the Missionary. 
(In preparation.) 

The Physical Life of the Missionary. 
(In preparation.) 

The Intellectual Life of the Missionary. 
(In preparation.) 

The Practical Life of the Missionary. 
(In preparation.) 

The Social Life of the Missionary. 


The Missionary in his Public Relations. 





